1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to apparatus which are used to remove a soft stopper such as the cork from a container such as a bottle of wine.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many liquid containers have stoppers made of cork to prevent spillage during transportation and to preserve the liquid contents during prolonged storage. For example, alcoholic beverages such as wines are often stored in long neck glass bottles which are stoppered by corks allow the wine to breathe and sometimes add flavor to the wine. To remove the cork, typically a corkscrew is used to bore a hole in the middle of the cork to be pulled out of the bottle neck. However, there are many disadvantages to the conventional corkscrew and there exists a need for a safe and effective tool to grip the cork for removal from a bottle.
The typical corkscrew consists of a long solid screw which is connected to a handle usually arranged perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the screw to facilitate the rotational effort by the user's hand in screwing the screw into the cork and for pulling the cork out of the bottle.
Several disadvantages of prior art corkscrews are as follows:
(1) The screw has a distinct sharp point which can easily puncture or lacerate the user or another person;
(2) There is no structural design to assist the screw to center itself so as not to puncture one side of the cork before the entire longitudinal length of the cork is traversed for maximum friction between the cork and the screw. There is also no structural design to insure that once the top of the cork is punctured, (whether at the center of the top surface of the cork or not), that the direction of penetration is parallel to the central longitudinal axis. The screw is particularly prone to travel in several different directions if the user cannont steady his or her hand at all times during the screwing motion. When this happens, the cork is particularly prone to breakage;
(3) Even if the center is punctured and the subsequent direction of the screw is exactly along the longitudinal axis of the cork, some corks are so soft that on pulling, the center of the cork disintegrates and allows the screw to come out of the cork without the cork being pulled out of the bottle neck;
(4) Once the cork has a complete bore in the center, there is no way another attempt with the same screw will succeed in removal of the cork because the threads of the screw no longer can form any tight contact and friction with the body of the cork. To retrieve the liquid, one has to either push the broken cork into the bottle or break the glass container itself, both methods introducing contaminants into the wine;
(5) The major obstacle to the removal of the cork is the friction between the cylindrical surface of the cork and the interior of the bottle neck surrounding the cork. To attempt to overcome this friction by using the friction between a narrow straight slippery metal screw at the center of the cork, in loose contact with the body of a soft screw, is a most ineffective approach. This approach tends to break the cork rather than overcome the friction between the cork and the bottle neck.
Therefore, there is a significant need for an improved cork removal apparatus which overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art corkscrews.